Early Music
by Brochelle
Summary: Coach woke to a sound he'd never thought he'd hear again. It was  definitely a surprise. What was more of a surprise was who was playing it. Rochelle/Nick pairing.


Now _there_ was a sound he hadn't heard in weeks.

It dragged Coach out of sleep, yanking him into consciousness at a speed that contradicted how weary his body was. Day must have broken finally, for the room was lit with that half-hearted glow of dawn. The early rays of sunlight filtered through the cracks between the boards nailed across the windows, filling the air above his head with faded gold and dust motes. The air itself held an odd, stagnant quality. What was the word? Lukewarm.

Most noticeably, however, the constant explosions that had shook the room just hours before were absent, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. But now the silence was broken again - with the trilling of piano notes.

Coach sat up, propping himself off of the splintered floor and glancing around. There was a lump in the farthest corner, covered in a thin, dirty blanket. As another, brief, piano song drifted through the floorboards, the lump grunted and suddenly moved. It then rolled over, and its hat fell from its head dejectedly, revealing a mass of curly hair that could only belong to Ellis. The kid's face was softened into a gentle smile, and his bruised and bloodied hands gripped the blanket draped over his shoulders like it was a life jacket. Coach almost laughed aloud - the boy slept like the dead.

-There was that piano again.

Rochelle was nowhere in sight. The blankets on her cot were thrown aside, suggesting that she'd left in a hurry, but her axe rested against the wall closest to him, along with her defibrillator pack and the bottle of Boomer bile she had snatched off the body of a CEDA agent. A feather of cold fear brushed Coach's senses - Nick wasn't in his cot either, and none of his weapons were where he'd left them.

Coach pulled off his moth-eaten blanket and stood, groaning as the aches and pains of yesterday's fight flushed back to his attention. Doing his best to ignore it, he stepped over Rochelle's cot and past Ellis, making his way downstairs and toward the piano music.

There was sudden laughter, and the piano stopped playing after a chaotic crescendo of notes - and voices, too soft for him to discern. The conversation was occasionally broken with bursts of chatter or giggles. Coach, utterly confused because he could hear _Nick_ laughing over the soft, feminine chuckles, stopped just before he stepped off of the stairs. He peered around the corner and scanned the safe house's living room.

The place wasn't like all the other safe houses the survivors had had the pleasure to visit. This one was homely: it was furnished with two, well-worn couches, a plush armchair, a coffee table (which had seen the business end of a gun on multiple occasions, so it seemed), and plenty of pictures framed on the walls. Farthest from the stairs, a door led into the kitchen, which Ellis had blocked off with the refrigerator since the "window's been blown clean out!". The typical suburban household front door had been replaced with the telltale gateway of a safe house: a solid block of steel, reinforced with rebars, bits of scraps welded on, and enough rivets to reinforce the Veterans' Memorial Bridge. It - along with the scarred and splintered coffee table - was the only thing that stayed a remnant of the bloody chaos that had become of the world.

"Okay, alright. Look, I know how to play."

Coach could see Nick, across the room in an alcove by a window. He sat in a wooden chair in front of a splintered mess that might have once been a piano; one hand lingering on the ivory keys, the other hand held up in a placating gesture. If Nick looked to Rochelle's left, he would have seen Coach. The older man stepped back into the shadows offered by the stair well, but didn't leave.

He'd never heard the conman laugh before.

Rochelle stood off to Nick's right, with her back to Coach. Her arms were crossed and she had shifted her weight off to one hip. Even in the early morning's light, Coach could see her shaking her head. "Nick, you're full of shit. You have no idea how to play a piano."

The conman twisted in his seat and faced Rochelle. Waving his hands at the piano, he raised a brow and gave her a grin - most likely intended to win her over, but more than likely just succeeding in pissing her off. On any account, the woman just gave a chuckle and leaned toward him.

"I would bet _money_," she said, "that you cannot play that piano."

Nick turned to the piano again. He gave her a sideways glance, filled with daring.

"Money, huh?"

"Yup."

There was a hint of triumph in the older man's voice. "Well. I take that bet and-"

Nick rested both hands on the keys. He played a quick little tune, beating a cheerful song out of the ruined ivory with surprising dexterity. Within seconds, it was over. The final echoes of the song evaporated into the depths of the house, creating an odd sense of tension as it died away. Nick turned his head and gave Rochelle a grin.

Patting Nick's shoulder, Rochelle began to laugh warmly, in a way Coach had never heard before.

"-and I'll raise it," the man finished.

"Fine," Rochelle managed to say. "You can play piano. But do you know how to play more than just THAT song?"

Coach covered his mouth to stifle the laugh, and started backing up, heading back up the stairs. Behind him, Rochelle continued to raise the bet, while Nick insisted he could play more - which, judging by the uproarious laughter following a couple minutes later, he couldn't.


End file.
